As our society continues to stand idly by while Gun to your Head obstetrics has its way with American Women, we see many pundits, politicians, and clergy members wringing their hands wondering what is going on with our young people.
We are sowing the wind as a society and we are going to reap a very strong whirlwind.
Here is an article talking about current birth statistics, based on the preliminary report released this past week by the Center for Disease Control for 2005.
Quotes:

“The government also reported that the rate of births by Caesarean delivery continued to climb in 2005 to a record high, despite efforts by public health authorities to bring down the number.
Many experts believe a large number of C-sections are medically unnecessary and done only for the convenience of the mother or her doctor.”

I’m just wondering what “efforts by public health authorities” the writer of the article is talking about? Have we experienced any sort of censure of doctors, hospitals, or their administrators when the C-section rate goes over a certain percent? Some hospitals in America are reaching obscene levels of intervention in birth.
Another quote:

“The C-section rate rose to 30.2 percent of all births in 2005, an increase of 1 percentage point from the previous year. The rate has risen by nearly half since 1996.
“It is clear that the procedure is being overused,” Tonya Jamois, president of the International Cesarean Awareness Network, said in a statement. ICAN is a California-based nonprofit organization focused on lowering C-section rates.”

Full ICAN response to current stats, and the ICAN guide on what to do if your hospital or doctor refuses to let you have a vaginal birth after C-section.

I have some ideas on how to “reform” birth.
If women want C-sections, let them pay for them.
I am all for choice in childbirthing options. But if the vast majority of women are “choosing” to have a C-section to give birth, let this type of birth be classed in the optional surgery catagory of health care. And like a cosmetic surgery, let the parents pay for this surgery if that is what they truly want.
Then we will sift through the rhetoric and be able to see who truly wants to have major abdominal surgery when birthing a child.
Another idea would be to fine any doctor who induced labor before 41 weeks.
And, for any doc who cuts and pulls a baby because the baby is “getting too big” or the mother is “just tired of being pregnant”, or “my doctor is going out of town, and I want him to deliver the baby” before 41 weeks, he or she should be put on medical probation.
I believe the vast majority of those surgeries were and are coerced, with threats of legal action, bullying by the docs and nurses, and fearmongering by the hospital staff.
So how do we get the C-section rate down to a healthy 10 to 15%?
Educating the Medical Profession with their own statistics might prove helpful.
More women than ever before are getting prental care in America. Yet the infant mortality rate, prematurity rate, and all health indicators and statisitcs prove that mothers and babies are not being “saved” by all of the drugs and surgery.
This is not to say that all surgeries are evil. My next door neighbor, a highly educated and informed mother who had a natural Bradley Birth with her first son, just gave birth this week by C-section because her placenta completely covered her cervix in a condition called Placenta Previa. Her section was completely justified and probably saved her life and the life of her child.
But how do we seperate the elective surgeries from those truly needed for real emergencies?
Ultimately it comes down to education. Teaching mothers how to keep themselves low risk. Teaching the facts about surgical birth to those who think it will be better than a natural birth. holding hospitals accountable if rates go above a certain level.
It is parents and taxpayers who should hold hospitals and doctors accountable. We pay the bills and we are the ones who have to live with the long term outcome of a physically damamged child or mother.
If we don’t change the trends with some proactive and thoughtful steps, I’m predicting the rate will double by 2020. A sixty percent C-section rate??? Can it happen in America? Sure it can, and that is the direction we are headed without some major reforms. And if anyone at all thinks socialized medicine will be the answer for the birthing mess, they have been sorely deceived by illogical thinking. The doctors and hospitals will have absolutely zero incentive to do anything normal and natural with birth if we become completely socialized in America.
And what will that mean for our society? Anyone not willing to submit to the medical model must flee.
Flee to what?
What is Natural.
What is good.
What is whole.
What is ALIVE!
What is everlasting JOY!
The parents who have experienced holistic birth often are surprised by the joy that seizes them when that baby is born.

Paul holding Benjamin right after the birth!
There is nothing more sacred, holy, or special than welcoming a child quietly in the sanctity of ones own bedroom, surrounded by angels and family harmony and love.
Jenny Hatch

Paul delivered Ben in our bedroom on October 25, 2002.
He lept for joy when our son was born.